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J-Ranko's IM Drop-Off Panorama 20g - new pics


J-Ranko

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My impulsiveness got the better of me this weekend. On Saturday I brought home what I thought what a relatively reef safe fish based on some cursory online search.

 

This is a beautiful black Sailfin Blenny, which looks like the Darth Vader of blennies:

 

BlackBlenny2.jpg

 

He's more dark purple than black, actually.  Here he is perched on my elegance:

BlackSailfinBlenny.jpg

 

He acclimated fairly quickly and began swimming in the open water, scanning the rocks for food. Unfortunately, it turned out he had an appetite for SPS corals and immediately nipped at my digitata and acropora!  Had I spent only a little more time researching, I would have read about their tendency to nip at SPS and clams. :angry:

 

So he spent less than 24 hours in my tank before going back to the LFS.  But not before leaving some minor marks on my SPS frags (thankfully small and should heal in time).

 

EDIT: This guy was misidentified by the LFS as a black sailfin blenny, but I found a picture and description that's more accurate at at Live Aquaria, and it's actually a black combtooth blenny. Very similar and hard to tell apart, but this guy has the "with caution" reef compatibility label, unlike the sailfin.

 

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+23+2671&pcatid=2671

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On a more positive note, I also got this new coral--a purple gorgonian!

 

I wanted a tall gorgonian to fill out out the right side, but man did I underestimate its height. :lol:  I may have to frag it in two and put the other piece on the left side.

Right%20side.jpg

 

FTS 2-27-2017

FTS_02-27-2017.jpg

 

I'm finally seeing more specks of purple coralline on the rocks, an encouraging sign after they bleached from the peroxide dips I did last month to kill the remaining algae. 

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I see now why you commented on my not impulse buying :P.  Yep....that's exactly what would happen to me.  If they say the fish might harass coral...it most certainly would LOL.  I still really want one though.

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hedgeclipper2

Looks great!

 

What are you running in the left and right return chambers?  I have an inTank media basket in the left side running filter floss, chemi-pure elite and purigen and just the standard filter sock the tank came with on the right side.

 

Currently skimmer-less, but I only have one fish (a small Clown) and doing weekly ~3.5 gal water changes.

 

I love the tank though, does yours have the bracing at the top?  IM had to send me (and Gena I think) a new one because of the bowing of the acrylic.

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20 minutes ago, gena said:

I see now why you commented on my not impulse buying :P.  Yep....that's exactly what would happen to me.  If they say the fish might harass coral...it most certainly would LOL.  I still really want one though.

 

Yeah. The LFS isn't entirely off the hook, though.  They misidentified the fish and assured me it was reef safe. Granted, I should have known better. :lol:

 

8 minutes ago, hedgeclipper2 said:

Looks great!

 

What are you running in the left and right return chambers?  I have an inTank media basket in the left side running filter floss, chemi-pure elite and purigen and just the standard filter sock the tank came with on the right side.

 

Currently skimmer-less, but I only have one fish (a small Clown) and doing weekly ~3.5 gal water changes.

 

I love the tank though, does yours have the bracing at the top?  IM had to send me (and Gena I think) a new one because of the bowing of the acrylic.

 

Thanks!  On the left is a Poly-filter before the filter bag; on the right, there's a mesh bag of carbon after the return from the skimmer. I took out the filter bag on the right to make room for the skimmer intake.

 

I don't have bracing.  I bought this tank last month, so I assume it's a fairly recent build.  It does bow very little, but not enough to concern me.  Did your replacement unit have bracing? 

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hedgeclipper2
Just now, J-Ranko said:

 

Did your replacement unit have bracing? 

I had to email Brian at IM with pictures and they sent me a new one.  Here is a picture where you can see the bracing they added to new units to prevent bowing issues.  Mine was pretty bad, was bowing out over 3/8".

 

 

IMG_1140.jpg

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Bummer. Guess mine wasn't part of the new batch of braced units. I've been keeping an eye on it, though, and it's not 3/8 inch.  However, I guess the risk is that it might get worse over time...

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12 hours ago, J-Ranko said:

Bummer. Guess mine wasn't part of the new batch of braced units. I've been keeping an eye on it, though, and it's not 3/8 inch.  However, I guess the risk is that it might get worse over time...

I think they are replacing any tank that is bowing.  If you are concerned at all, contact them and express your concern for the bowing and I bet they will replace it for you.  Mine also had bubbles in the seam that were getting bigger.  If you see anything like that, point that out as well.  The company must obviously have concern about the tanks if they are bracing them now and replacing tanks without the brace.

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hedgeclipper2
5 hours ago, gena said:

I think they are replacing any tank that is bowing.  If you are concerned at all, contact them and express your concern for the bowing and I bet they will replace it for you.  Mine also had bubbles in the seam that were getting bigger.  If you see anything like that, point that out as well.  The company must obviously have concern about the tanks if they are bracing them now and replacing tanks without the brace.

Mine had bubbles in the seams at the very top left and right as well.  It appeared as though the acrylic was slowly pulling away from the side pieces.  I used some vice type clamps I had in the mean-time to support mine until the replacement came.  

 

I would not have been a happy camper with 20 gallons of water all over my brand new wood floors.

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9 hours ago, gena said:

I think they are replacing any tank that is bowing.  If you are concerned at all, contact them and express your concern for the bowing and I bet they will replace it for you.  Mine also had bubbles in the seam that were getting bigger.  If you see anything like that, point that out as well.  The company must obviously have concern about the tanks if they are bracing them now and replacing tanks without the brace.

 

Thanks! What a pain it's going to be if I replace it. I'll have to drain the tank and transfer everything.  Thank goodness I went bare bottom. :(

 

9 hours ago, flatlandreefer said:

Looks good, really like the elegance and the gorg in the back!

 

Thank you!  

 

3 hours ago, hedgeclipper2 said:

Mine had bubbles in the seams at the very top left and right as well.  It appeared as though the acrylic was slowly pulling away from the side pieces.  I used some vice type clamps I had in the mean-time to support mine until the replacement came.  

 

I would not have been a happy camper with 20 gallons of water all over my brand new wood floors.

 

Ugh. That would not be good. I'll keep an eye on the seams for sure. I'm now very inclined to get a replacement unit.

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hedgeclipper2
11 minutes ago, J-Ranko said:

Ugh. That would not be good. I'll keep an eye on the seams for sure. I'm now very inclined to get a replacement unit.

Do you have Brian's email address at IM?  They were very prompt in getting me a new tank.  In fact I still have the old one sitting in my garage collecting dust, wondering if they are ever going to send an RMA or if they even want it back.

 

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1 hour ago, hedgeclipper2 said:

Do you have Brian's email address at IM?  They were very prompt in getting me a new tank.  In fact I still have the old one sitting in my garage collecting dust, wondering if they are ever going to send an RMA or if they even want it back.

 

Thanks for the contact! If they don't want it back, you could probably do DIY bracing on it and use it as a second tank.

 

-----------------------

Here are a couple of new photos I'm posting.

 

My orange and green Rhodactis:

Rhodactis.jpg

 

 

My acropora, which has managed not to RTN/STN or bleach yet, so I'll take it a positive sign.  Its color has dulled slightly from the LFS, where it was originally under a large T5 fixture, but so far so good.

 

acropora.jpg

 

If this guy remains healthy and starts showing some growth, I'll be more inclined to add acros. 

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17 hours ago, J-Ranko said:

 

Thanks! What a pain it's going to be if I replace it. I'll have to drain the tank and transfer everything.  Thank goodness I went bare bottom. :(

 

 

Yes, it is a pain.  I replaced my sand too.  But I wasn't happy with the really fine sand I had originally.  This new sand is way better.  It was a plus for me to have to do the transfer, in more than one way :).

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On 3/1/2017 at 1:36 PM, gena said:

Yes, it is a pain.  I replaced my sand too.  But I wasn't happy with the really fine sand I had originally.  This new sand is way better.  It was a plus for me to have to do the transfer, in more than one way :).

 

Glad that worked out for you.  I'm currently mulling over my options at the moment. 

 

On 3/1/2017 at 4:56 PM, TinyOcean said:

Beautiful corals!

 

Thank you!  I'm hoping to stay consistent this time and see some nice growth and coloration soon.

 

18 hours ago, tam said:

Those gorgs look great in your tank!

 

Thanks!  Now I'm hoping it doesn't grow fast since it's already big enough in that area of the tank. :lol:

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A purple update.

 

First, I got this unusual purple turbinaria heronensis from my LFS today.  It's positioned in the lower half of the tank, on the drop-off area, as apparently they're a deep-water type of coral.  It was fragged from a colony that apparently declined and STN'ed, so I bought the cheap $10 frag hoping for some luck that I can get it to recover in my tank.

turbinaria_heronensis.jpg

 

Next is an update on my purple montipora digita, which has shown remarkable growth in the tips after 3 weeks. It's bright blue-purple color has faded a bit, though:

purple_montidigi.jpg

 

Third update is my acan echinata with purple mouths.  You can also see specks of purple coralline are returning to my rocks.

Echinata_acan.jpg

 

Fourth is my green birdsnest with purple tips, also showing some growth:

purple_birdsnest.jpg

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It'll be interesting to see what happens with that deep water coral. It definitely has a really unique appearance, I like it. 

 

It's exciting to see all of that growth you're getting, you must be doing something right!!

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11 minutes ago, Weetabix7 said:

It'll be interesting to see what happens with that deep water coral. It definitely has a really unique appearance, I like it. 

 

It's exciting to see all of that growth you're getting, you must be doing something right!!

 

 

"Deep" might be overstating it. There's an article about them, which describes some specimens found in depths of 80 ft, around the depth of Euphyllias. 

 

Here's a couple of pics of more mature colonies:

 

turbinaria-heronensis-jake-adams-2.jpg

 

turbinaria-hero-coral-4.jpg

Most of the pictures I found online are the green variety.  

 

My LPS are doing fairly well, so I'm hoping it's just the right environment for it.

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18 hours ago, Weetabix7 said:

Those are REALLY cool looking!!!

 

I hope I can get a similar growth pattern.  This morning I saw the polyps out!  I'm gonna try and get some pictures later today, but that's an encouraging sign.

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4 minutes ago, J-Ranko said:

 

I hope I can get a similar growth pattern.  This morning I saw the polyps out!  I'm gonna try and get some pictures later today, but that's an encouraging sign.

 

Yes, it is!!

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Militant Jurist

That deep-ish turbinaria looks like it will be awesome! Rescue corals/frags are some of my favorite success stories in the hobby.

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